Games You Played Today VIII: Journey of the Cursed Poster

iguferon · November 21, 2023, 2:58am

The couch reminds me too much of bad things

extrabastardformula · November 21, 2023, 3:25am

I know about the pool, even without being a pornhusker, yet I remain unware of The Couch

smbhax · November 21, 2023, 3:36am

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (NES) (dumped from TDAC PC/Steam)

The SNES was already out by the time Capcom was putting out this sequel to the zippy first NES Rescue Rangers, so maybe that’s why they clearly put a lot of effort into making the sprites really big and ornate. Some amazing pixel art! But there are less enemies on-screen, occasional mild slowdown, and the screen is slightly narrower in the scrolling stages. Still, it looks super-nice!

Gameplay is largely the same as the first game: your tiny chipmunk picks up mini-crates or whatever’s handy and hucks them at enemies. There are no health items which I found annoying because I had to save scum this thing and I hate saving when I’m not at full health. : P You pick up “RR” blocks and I had no idea what they did but if it’s like the flower blocks in the first game, 50 or something probably gives you a 1-Up.

You don’t pick up 1-Ups or other things you got in the first game mid-stage; but there’s a BONUS sequence at the end of each stage or so where you pick up the red ball with which you fought bosses in the first game, and chuck it at powerups whizzing overhead. You only get one shot and in the first few seconds the pick-up-item button doesn’t work, so I would panic (thinking it was timed, which in retrospect it probably isn’t), try the other button, which would of course jump, then I’d be frantically air controlling and hammering the other button on the way down to try to pick up the ball as fast as possible and hurriedly chuck it upscreen and nearly always miss and get nothing.

(The first game has a bonus sequence where you might get lucky and find a hidden 1-Up; it felt pretty darn random and was kind of annoying, or I was just real bad at it.)

Fortunately the game is mostly pretty easy–except for a couple infuriating MINE CART sequences in one stage (was the proliferation of horrible mine cart stages in 90s games nostalgia for Temple of Doom or something? argh) where your control abruptly switches from the cart to your character when the cart hits a discontinuity in the track, and then I’d think I was braking to avoid the next swinging pendulum when in fact my character was walking off the back of the cart to their death again–

And then a jumping bit near the end of the game with small, widely spaced conveyor belt islands, constantly respawning swooping birds, and an electrical field. ;_;

But the real problem for me came in some of the boss fights where I just couldn’t tell what I was supposed to do. This was never really a problem in the first game, where you always threw the bright red ball at the boss, and generally it hit them. But in RR2, you rely on whatever the boss wants to drop for your missile weapon, so there are long bits where you just have to dodge their one, often very slow, repeating sequence until they randomly grant you a missile weapon. And once you get it, what to do with it? Not so clear with two bosses who can block your shots. It took me so much save scumming to figure those out gar. Just really unintuitive to me, a goober who played the first three Super Mario games as a kid–not 100% sure I got all the way to the end of any of them, but at least most of the way–and figured I’d experienced the best platforming action there ever would be and didn’t need to play any more of the genre–and didn’t up this past year or so, pretty much.

Overall the action felt pretty uneven in this one, sometimes stupidly easy, sometimes stupidly hard, like it really could’a used a few more play testing and tweaking passes.

The end was weird, too–I dunno if I got a “bad” ending or something, but there was actually a BONUS stage after the last fight, then a cutscene seeming to end with characters heading off to an action sequence–then an end sequence where they just come in and it’s a wrap. Maybe a final stage was cut?

daphaknee · November 21, 2023, 3:36am

casting couch or max hardcores yellow couch. both are places of power where evil gathers tbh

iguferon · November 21, 2023, 3:41am

there’s only one pool but two couches…I think that tells us all we need to know

vodselbt · November 21, 2023, 4:08am

the real couch is trapped in the black lodge/dark place and is trying to escape

username · November 21, 2023, 6:45am

DROD: TCB day 10

Overnight I had an epiphany about the mud/tar room I was stuck on: since I get 9 clone potions to take out the various enemy eyeballs along the perimeter of the room there’s likely only 8 of them, so the extra would be used to trigger the switch that changes all the mud to tar and vice-versa near the front while leaving me near the mother that caused the constant growth. It’d make the room much cleverer and being stuck would just be on me missing a clue, heck I probably wasn’t even stuck in an unwinnable solution when I walked away to try different rooms.

I booted it up today and nope there are 9 eyes, I missed nothing and the room was exactly what I feared it was like last night. For whatever reason on this second attempt I was able to make it to the mother’s eyes from the switch, I am thinking it is because I left more of the non-growing bits intact before switching but honestly I have no idea. Basically I either got unlucky on that first attempt or lucky on the second, because I can’t tell after spending over an hour on this room alone I feel comfortable calling this particular puzzle bad.

Anyways I moved on, ended up back in the underground city I started at, was able to get a job if I could name an opening, cue a flashback to the end of the second game where I killed the slayer dispatched to eliminate me so long story short I am now filling the role of the big bad from the prior game (I had to survive a death gauntlet against 5 or 6 other candidates, thanks god for bombs). I can now pass the gate that requires one to be employed to do so and have to solve puzzles in this castle(?) that I think involve sets of citizens following strict paths? I only got a quick peak, this’ll likely be tomorrow’s discovery.

Mikey · November 21, 2023, 8:41am

I was thinking Casting because it’s the one I’ve seen in just contextless photos with no people in it

captainlove · November 21, 2023, 9:24am

The Pool currently residing in the FBC vaults

Sykel · November 21, 2023, 2:41pm

more ps1

BUSHIDO BLADE

i think this is one of those games that i love the idea of more than the actual game (like shenmue). it’s too rigid and clunky for what it’s trying to recreate, and the fully 3d environments you can run around aren’t utilised at all. bushido edge is better. i still enjoy it, it just feels like it’s kinda half-baked. i find it hard to sell it though because I still dig it. plus you can beat it in like five minutes if you’re good at it. i need to make a separate list for maybe keeps. VERDICT: MAYBE KEEP

SPIDER-MAN

I played the demo of this so much, I loved swinging around rooftops as janky as it was, and the indoor mission was cool because you could sneak around on the ceilings and get the drop on (literally) enemies, and then you throw a bomb into a vault to save the building, so cool! so I was excited to play the full game. but it kinda sucks! i thought it would just expand on the rooftop and stealthy bits, but instead it’s a bunch of set pieces, some of which are neat, most of which are tedious, and also a bunch of running around grey corridors hitting switches. the game has good writing at least and is nice and short, but this is definitely one of the games ruined for me by playing a vertical slice that’s better than the rest of the game. verdict: SELL, keep the demo disc with it on

I’m doing MDK now which I thought would be an obvious keep because I loved it back in the day, but I just finished the first level and it’s kinda shitty? these enemies are bullet spongey as hell

loki · November 21, 2023, 4:22pm

before you sell/delete spider-man, you at least need to repeatedly keep highlighting the kid mode option so you can hear every character voice in the game say it

villain · November 21, 2023, 5:48pm

Started Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Fire; completed the first four shrines and got the Paraglider. Killing things in Zelda games has always been unsatisfying because there’s never any real reward for fighting things and it’s just as unsatisfying in this one because all enemies seem to drop is shit for crafting/cooking (a system I couldn’t care less about in any video game) and your weapons don’t last for more than a few hits before breaking. I don’t know if the game is intentionally trying to veer me away from bothering with combat, but that’s what’s happening. I also don’t see why it’s necessary to interrupt my gameplay to tell me I found a new item that serves no immediate purpose other than as an ingredient in recipes – I don’t care that I found a Bokoblin horn or whatever; just leave me alone to play the fucking game!

The next Zelda should take place in a contemporary or post-contemporary setting so there are skyscrapers everywhere that I can paraglide from because so far that’s the best part of the game.

physical · November 21, 2023, 7:05pm

imo especially in the early game, avoiding unnecessary fights is a good idea so you don’t run out of resources. there’s an armor set you can find early that decreases movement noise, even a single piece can help a lot

COINTELBRO · November 21, 2023, 7:21pm

bloodborne run continues. i took down vicar amelia on the first try at a heavy cost of consumables, then got utterly outclassed by a player-model npc with a bloodtinge build, just absolutely wrecked me with a bunderbuss. but i didn’t actually die, and was able to pull it back to its leash range, then cheese it with poison throwing daggers. classic

later, on the third floor of my second chalice dungeon, i found a gem that converts a weapon to fire damage (i haven’t found the mind flayer @physical mentioned yet), so i slotted it onto the saw spear for a highly dependable anti-beast weapon. both forms are serrated, it does enough poise damage to interrupt most enemy attacks, and it has good reach.

vit and end are both at 27, and now i’m raising strength to 16 so i can use the moonlight sword later. hopefully i’ll have time to put points into arcane before i start running into equipment that requires it. may save the whirligig saw for a future strength run, or ng+

i’ve just arrived at hemwick charnel lane. what are they doing to the bodies? why does it involve large, long-handled branding irons? why are barrow wights popping out of the ground? i will continue slaughtering everything i see and maybe figure it out later

physical · November 21, 2023, 7:25pm

iirc any gem you find is good at that point, that guy is just there in case the RNG is unkind

u_u · November 21, 2023, 7:34pm

The true bloodborne way

It may even be like lore-accurate to approach it this way. It makes the ending even funnier
…I appear to have involved myself in some kind of a predicament…

Stree_Overlord · November 21, 2023, 8:33pm

To MOBA or not to MOBA?

It’s just so hard!

I have come to the realization lately that these games should only be played by people who are in an Internet cafe, or an apartment together. Ideally both teams! Just one together at least though. Obviously this is ridiculous.

It is related I think to the alienation essential to the modern punitive state! Whether intentionally or not, Internet video games are a replication of the separation of the self and the other instead of the correct view, that we are “we”, truly and honestly. Here then the separation becomes defined by a lack of perceived skill, yes, perceived because are we not all liars, particularly in our own ears? We hold ourselves on a pedestal and look down upon our fellow gamers rather than with linked arms, even in conflict, a connection forged through fire and sweat and bits.

It’s a common thread with so many games, the wasted potential, either of the developers assuming the least of the players, and then the players proving that assumption through their own base, egoistic behavior.

It’s very depressing.

smbhax · November 21, 2023, 11:59pm

Last two dumps from The Disney Afternoon Collection (PC/Steam)

TaleSpin (NES)

Sluggish horizontal shooter where your direction of travel affects your shot, so if you’re moving your blocky SD airplane up or down–very necessary in this very tall screen ratio–while trying to shoot forward, your shot will go up or down diagonal instead of forward; I actually had an easier time shooting backwards! (Button B flips your plane upside-down and shoots directly backwards. : PPP)